Magnum

Magnum (pronounced mag-nuhm)

(1) A large wine bottle having a capacity of two ordinary bottles or 1.5 liters (1.6 quarts).

(2) In ballistics, a magnum cartridge or firearm (a loaded with a larger charge than other cartridges of the same calibre).

(3) A firearm using such a cartridge.

(4) Used generally, unusually great in power or size:

1788:  From the Latin magnum (“great, large, big" (of size), "great, considerable" (of value), "strong, powerful" (of force); of persons, "elder, aged"), neuter of magnus (large), from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root meg- (great).  The original use in English was to describe the large wine-bottle, then usually containing two quarts.  As the name of a powerful type of handgun, it was first registered in 1935 by the US company, Smith & Wesson of Springfield, Massachusetts.  Outside of ballistics, the most common use is now probably “magnum opus" (masterpiece, a person's greatest work, literally "great work", applied, in literature, music, art and (sometime a little liberally) popular culture.  Magnum is a noun; the noun plural is magnums or magna.

The magnum’s place in the hierarchy of Champagne bottles.

Magnum ammunition

Lindsay Lohan in habit with Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum, Machete (2010).

Released in September 2010 at the Venice Film Festival and distributed internationally by Sony Pictures, Machete would probably be more highly regarded if the full-length feature had lived up to the promise created by the artfully-edited trailer.  Probably about twenty minutes too long, the critical consensus suggests Machete was a violent, shallow, repetitive and probably unnecessary addition to whatever was the sub-genre of exploitation it inhabited.  That said, the production values were thought high enough for those who like this sort of thing to be able to look forward to it as one of the more enjoyable movies of the summer of 2010.

Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.

A magnum cartridge is one with a larger case size than the standard cartridge of the same calibre and case shoulder shape.  The now generic term is derived from Smith & Wesson’s Original .357 S&W Magnum, introduced in 1934; magnum ammunition containing either or both additional propellant or a heavier projectile but the term is a bit of an anomaly in the business of ballistics.  Although in the terminology of firearms, most jargon is explicitly defined, “magnum ammunition” has no precise codified set of standards, instead being just an indication of the possession of more powerful characteristics than other loads of the same calibre and shape.  One revolver which has found a niche is the .22 Magnum.  Although in the public imagination it lurks behind the bigger calibre loads (.357, .44, .50), it's a practical device which can use the .22 LR (Long Rifle) shell and manufacturers offer them with a cylinder capacity of 10 or 12, more than many semi-automatics.  Retailers recommend them for non-expert shooters because with a minimal recoil when firing, they're easy to handle and the rule is it’s better to have a .22 LR that hits its target than a .44 Magnum that misses it. 

Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum.

Smith & Wesson’s original .357 Magnum was introduced in 1934 in response to the growing availability of bullet-proofing technology in both automobiles and the ballistics vests used for personal protection.  It was an attempt to provide greater penetrative power without the need to increase the bore with the consequential increase in the size and weight of weapons.  Predictably though, the arms race had begun, and in the decades which followed, magnum loads would become available for a wide range of calibres, hand guns and long arms as well as shotguns, the classic .44 Magnum, later made famous in popular culture, released in 1954.  It didn’t stop there, increasing demand for the .44 convincing Smith & Wesson to develop the .500 Magnum, currently the most powerful handgun load generally available and one marketed, in addition to its other attractions, to those who might find it more convenient than a rifle for hunting big game.  The size, weight and recoil however mean it’s not suitable for all and in the US, .500 is anyway the legal limit for handgun loads.  In US law, it’s a rare restriction.

.460 Weatherby Magnum.

For that reason, even Smith and Wesson do recommend that unless one plans to hunt elephant at close range or expect to confront a charging wild boar, loads like the .357 Magnum are better for what most people do most of the time.  The same caution applies to the Magnum loads for rifles, the .375 Magnum often nominated by experts as the perfect compromise for all but the most extreme applications.  Indeed, it was loads like the .375 Magnum which eliminated most of the need for the famous old-style “elephant guns” like Holland & Holland’s .600 Nitro and the .458 and .460 Magnum cartridges of the 1950s were necessitated only by regulations governing big-game hunting in Africa mandating a load above .400.  Despite that, demand for the heavy calibres remains strong, Holland and Holland, after introducing a canon-like .700 Nitro found demand so unexpectedly strong that they resumed production of the long retired .600.  While it seems unlikely heavier loads will be thought practical, that may not matter, there being some evidence many of the .700 Nitros are sold to collectors, never to be fired.

That said, Austria’s Pfeifer firearms created supply to meet what demand there may be.  The Pfeifer .600 Nitro Express Zeliska single-action revolver weighs over 13 lb (4.85 kg) and is  22 inches (.56 m) in length, the cylinder section alone weighing 4.5 lb (17 kg).  Although generating a muzzle energy of 7,591 foot pounds (33.7 kn), paradoxically, the weight of the gun actually limits the recoil, making controlled shooting possible although, practice is essential.  With a cylinder capacity of either five .600 Nitro or .458 Winchester Magnum rounds, it's able to fire a 900 grain, .600 some 2000 feet (600+ m).  At release, Zeliska listed the revolver at US$17,316 and because each .600 Nitro Express round costs about US$45, it’s an expensive hobby.

The Magnum Concilium

Dating from Norman times, the Magnum Concilium (Great Council) was an English assembly eventually composed of senior ecclesiastics, noblemen and representatives of the counties of England and Wales (and later of the boroughs too) which was from time-to-time convened to discuss matter of state with the king and his advisors (sitting as the Curia Regis (King's Court; a kind of predecessor to the Privy Council and later the cabinet).  The Magnum Concilium evolved into the Concilium Regis in Parliamento (the parliament of England), the first generally thought to be the so-called "Model Parliament" of 1295, which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and representatives of the shires and boroughs.  The evolution wasn’t linear, power in the land a constant struggle between king and parliament, the authority of both fluctuating as the politics of the day effed and flowed.  Nor was the parliament a united force, shrewd kings knowing how to exploit divisions between the parliamentary factions but by the reign of Edward II (1284-1327; as Edward of Caernarfon, King of England 1307-1327), the nobility was ascendant, the Crown compliant and the rest essentially irrelevant.

Execution Of Charles I, 1649 (circa 1850) by an unknown artist.

Under Edward III (1312–1377; as Edward of Windsor, King of England 1327-1377), the modern bicameral structure (a House of Commons & a House of Lords), became clear and the authority of Parliament grew although the Lords remained by far the most powerful because that was where the economic resources were concentrated.  That reality was reflected by the practice, under the Plantagenet kings, of the summoning of the Magnum Concilium being something exclusively ecclesiastical & aristocratic, the representatives of the commons rarely in attendance.  After Henry VII (1457–1509; King of England 1485-1509) convened the Magnum Concilium on several occasions in the late 1400s, for various reasons, its participation in the governance of England went into abeyance until, in 1640, Charles I was advised to summon the Magnum Concilium after he’d dissolved the Short Parliament in order to raise money because his misrule and wars of adventure had bankrupted the state.  The king got his money but his private army was soon at war with the parliamentary forces of both Scotland and England and those wars did not for him go well.  Before the decade was over, he would be beheaded.  The Magnum Concilium has not since met but experts in English constitutional law have confirmed it still exists and can, at any time, be summoned by the Crown.

Chrysler’s 440 Magnum Six-Pack

383 Magnum V8 with cross-ram induction in in 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix D-500.

Chrysler’s family of big-block wedge V8s lasted from 1958 until 1978 but, although the label is often commonly applied, not all were designated “Magnum”.  The first Magnum was a high-performance version of the B-series 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8 (which differs from the later RB 383), the highlight being the option of a (long) cross-ram inlet manifold with two four-barrel carburetors.  It was only Dodge which used the Magnum label; the equivalent power-plant in a Plymouth was called a Commando (there were adjectives sometimes added) and in a Chrysler, a TNT.

1970 Dodge 440 Magnum Six-Pack.

Introduced in 1969, the highest evolution of the RB Magnum were the 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) versions built with three Holley 2300 series two-barrel carburetors instead of the more commonly seen single carburetor induction (which were on the 440 almost exclusively in four-barrel form).  The early versions used an Edelbrock manifold cast in aluminum but supply difficulties forced Chrysler also to cast their own in cast-iron to meet demand.  Although obviously a high-performance variation, marketed by Dodge as the 440 Magnum Six-Pack, the engine was engineered to use only the centre 250 cubic feet per minute (7 m³) carburetor under normal throttle loads, the outer two 370 cfm (10.4 m³) units used only if summoned (something like the "demand" superchargers on Weimar-era Mercedes-Benz, the kompressor activated only when the throttle was pushed wide-open, high in the rev range).  If one could resist the temptation of the sudden onrush of power, the Magnum Six-Pack could be quite economical by the admittedly slight standards of the time, simply because, when driven with restraint, it was percolating along with only the one two-barrel carburetor active.

440 Magnum Six-Pack in 1970 Dodge Challenger.

Internally, the Six-Pack Magnums differed from the single carburetor engines in the use of stiffer valve springs borrowed from the 426 Street Hemi, stronger rocker arms (strengthened connecting rods were added in 1970), molybdenum-filled piston rings and flash chromed valves (which is why simply adding the six-pack induction system to a standard 440 can end badly).  Better to cope with the additional stresses imposed by those high-tension springs, the camshaft lobes and lifter faces were blueprinted to equalise the loads, the lifters rotating to distribute wear equally across the surfaces subject to friction.  With its compression ratio upped from 10.1:1 to 10.5:1, upon release, the Magnum Six-Pack was rated at 390 bhp (290 kw), dropping slightly to 385 (287) when some minor anti-emission adjustments were made in 1971.  At around half the price of Chrysler’s much-vaunted Street-Hemi adaptation of the race engine, the Magnum Six-Pack was a bargain, at least matching the Hemi in most aspects of performance until speeds above 120 mph (190 km/h) were attained, along with a longer manufacturer’s warranty and lower insurance costs, at least for some.  It was good while it lasted but in the US, 1971 was the swansong for both the Magnum Six-Pack and the Street-Hemi, emission regulations and an astonishing increase in the cost of insuring the things crushing demand.

1971 Jensen FF Series III, one of 15 made from a total production (1966-1971) of 320.

Across the Atlantic however, the Six-Pack Magnum did enjoy a brief afterlife after being driven extinct in the US.  Jensen, in the throes of phasing out their acclaimed but unprofitable all-wheel-drive FF, were looking for a flagship which could be created quickly and cheaply, ruling out the mooted convertible which wouldn’t appear for some years.  With their planned new F-Type unlikely to be on sale before 1973, the need was for something which demanded neither much development time nor an onerous budget.  As it was, circumstances contrived to ensure the F-Type was stillborn after a single prototype was built.

The much admired louvers on 1972 Jensen SP.  So much did the look appeal a louvered bonnet (hood) of a slightly different design was later made available on the standard Interceptor.

Jensen had for years been building their Interceptor & FF models with the Chrysler RB engines and had even flirted with the idea of doing a run with the Street Hemi, a project aborted when the costs of adaptation became apparent.  In late 1970, Jensen’s need for something was communicated to Chrysler which, by happy coincidence, had a batch of Magnum Six-Pack engines which had been gathering dust in a Canadian warehouse since being effectively orphaned by the new US emission control legislation.  Within days, agreement was reached, Jensen taking delivery of the first tranche of the batch which, although unable to be sold in the US, were legal just about everywhere else.  The mechanical specification settled, discussions then turned to other features which could be included to enhance the car’s status as a premium product.  Because it was the 1970s (and there's really no other excuse), without much discussion, it was agreed to glue on a vinyl roof; that many others did the same thing is no defense but it wasn't obligatory; of the 232 SPs, there were 185 with a black vinyl roof, 15 in tan, two in white while three subversives ordered the "Duotone" paint option with the roof painted a contrasting color.  More defensible was the inclusion of a high-quality and very expensive Learjet eight-track cartridge stereo system and, to provide some continuity with the FF, it was decided to use that model’s blue-themed badges rather than the red used on the Interceptor.  Also, interestingly, it was during these initial discussions that a fully louvered bonnet (hood) would be included in the specification but there’s no indication there was any concern about additional engine-bay heat, the louvers apparently just a styling device to evoke memories of earlier eras when they were common on high-performance machinery.  There was little debate about the name; several people had suggested SP was the obvious choice.  In December 1970, the first prototype SP was built although the intricacies of the triple carburetor engine weren’t entirely new to Jensen’s engineers, having a few months earlier fitted one to an Interceptor.  Assessment of the prototype proved the adaptation was as straight-forward as expected, the minor issue of the additional clearance demanded by the big air-filter effected by a quick fix to the filter housing.

1971 Jensen SP at the Geneva Motor Show, March 1972.  Just twelve were built in left-hand drive configuration because the SP engine couldn't meet the new US emission standards, thereby precluding sales in the market most receptive to thirsty machines.

Scheduled for release in the northern autumn of 1971, Jensen’s original plan had been to announce the SP as part of their new range including the Mark III versions of both the Interceptor and FF but the realities of the future made apparent the mixed-messaging was a bad idea.  The SP was intended to be the new top-of-the line model so announcing it with an updated version of the doomed yet still more expensive FF made little sense, the Mark III FF created only as a way to ensure the last fifteen FF body-shells (the all-wheel drive configuration necessitated a longer wheelbase) could be utilised.  Almost all FF marketing was thus terminated and the emphasis switched to the new two-model range with the SP sitting atop which meant the Mark III FF, which would become one of the Jensens most prized by collectors, went at the time almost unnoticed.

1972 Monteverdi 375/4.

Beginning its tour of the motor show circuit, the new flagship was greeted with subdued interest by the motoring press which viewed the SP as the hot rod Interceptor it was and which, while entertaining in a occasionally brutish (and rather un-Jensen like) sort of way, was not as intriguing as the soon-to-be lamented FF, the prowess of which had so astonished all who drove it, exploring for the first time the revolutionary possibilities of anti-lock braking and all-wheel-drive.  Nevertheless, the performance did impress, a top-speed of 143 mph (230 km/h) being reported although it was noted the even bigger and heavier 375/4 limousine made by boutique Swiss manufacturer Monteverdi had been clocked just a little faster and it used the 440 with only a single four barrel carburetor.  Still it was fast enough and nobody complained the SP lacked pace.

Jensen SP press release, 5 October 1971.

What did elicit complaint was the manner in which that speed sometimes arrived.  The tremendous delivery of power at full-throttle was praised but the lack of predictable response lower in the rev-range attracted criticism, the additional carburetors kicking in sometimes unexpectedly and not always when the car was heading in a straight line.  Issues with hot-starting were also apparent and even the otherwise much admired multi-louvered bonnet was found not the be without fault, the slats apparently changing either the properties of the metal or the reaction of the shape to the fluid dynamics of air-flow; at speed, the bonnet would “slightly shiver, almost as though improperly fastened” and testers, used to the cocoon-like stability of the Interceptor and FF, found it disconcerting.  While none of the reviews were damning, nor were they much more than polite.  Surprisingly, the only mention testers made of the standard air-conditioning (A/C) was that it worked well but it deserved a longer note because Jensen was the only factory which fitted A/C to a triple-carburetor 440, Plymouth & Dodge in the US never offering the option.  Monteverdi enjoys a similar distinction, it's Hai (two of which were built in 1971 & 1973) the only vehicle powered by Chrysler's 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Hemi V8 to have factory fitted A/C.

1972 Jensen SP engine bay.

Worse was to come as customers started reporting problems, the first being the issue of under-bonnet heat.  Although a big machine by European standards, the engine bay of the Jensen was smaller than anything to which it’d been fitted in the US and, even with the louvers helping to ventilate the space, it got very hot in there and this quickly affected the carburetors which had never before been exposed to such extremes; parts warping as the metal heated and then cooled, causing air-gaps to emerge, making accurate tuning, vital with multiple-carburetion, impossible.  The factory was soon receiving reports of engines which refused to idle and, due to the inherent nature of the Holly 2300 carburetor design, engines would run too rich after a week or so of nothing more than normal driving.

Chocolate fiend Lindsay Lohan with Magnum (ice cream) backdrop.

For a small company like Jensen, it was a major setback.  The company had built the Interceptor's reputation on reliability and ease of ownership essentially by piggy-backing on the back of the bullet proof Chrysler V8s and TorqueFlite transmissions it had begun using in the Interceptor's predecessor, the CV8.  The approach, adopted by many in this era, appealed to buyers not sufficiently seduced by the bespoke charm and mechanical intricacies of the continental competition to wish to deal with the cost and inconvenience of the more demanding maintenance schedules (and expensive parts catalogue) listed by Ferrari, Lamborghini & Maserati.  Like the MGA Twin-Cam (and for that matter the later Jensen-Healey), the SP was a classic case of insufficient product development and testing, examples of which littered the post-war UK industry.  Perhaps there was complacency because (1) multiple carburetors were nothing new to British manufacturers and (2) the Six-Pack Magnum had a good record of reliability in the US.  However, three Hollys on a big-block Chrysler turned out to behave differently to three big SUs on a Jaguar XK-six.                  

1970 Dodge Super Bee 440 Magnum Six-Pack with typical girlfriend of typical buyer.

The occasional quirk of the Magnum Six-Pack was not unknown in the US but there the nature of the thing was well-understood; it was a hot-rod engine bought by those who wanted such things, most owners young, male, mechanically adept and often anxious to tinker under the hood (bonnet).  The Jensen buyer was a wholly different demographic, mostly older, affluent men who either had rarely seen under a bonnet or hadn’t looked for many years and their expectations of a car which was twice as expensive as Jaguar’s V12 E-Type were very different to those youthful Californian baby boomers had of their hotted-up taxi cabs.  Used to the effortless, if thirsty, behavior of the Interceptor, some found their SPs, the high-performance of which most could rarely explore, were behaving like brand new, very expensive old clunkers.

Jensen FF with typical mistress of typical buyer.  This is not a period photograph but is English model Harriadnie Beau Phipps (b 1993) in a 2014 photo-shoot for Oxfordshire-based UK operation Bavarez which specialized in restoring & modifying Interceptors. 

Weeks of testing and experiments with all sorts of adjustments proved pointless.  In Jensen’s workshops it was always possible to produce a perfectly running SP but, after sometimes as little as a week in the hands of owner, it would be back, displaying the same symptoms and in the end, Jensen admitted defeat and offered the only solution guaranteed to work: remove the triple induction system and replace it with the Interceptor’s faithful Carter Thermoquad four barrel carburetor.  That alleviated all the drivability issues but did mean that having paid their £6,976.87, a premium of a thousand-odd pounds over the anyway expensive Interceptor, the emasculated SP became an Interceptor with a vinyl roof, an eight-track cartridge player and a vibrating bonnet.  The factory’s records suggest between a quarter and a third of buyers opted for the Theromquad fix and some refunds were paid to the especially unhappy.

Last gasp: 1974 Jensen Interceptor convertible.

Although Jensen had known, because the Magnum Six-Pack was out of production, the SP was not going to have a long life, it had been hoped it would fulfil its role until the new F-Type was expected to be released in 1973.  However, having built 208 SPs, Jensen didn’t take up their option on what was still in Chrysler’s Canadian remainder bin and, once the stock already delivered was exhausted, the SP was allowed quietly to die.  Between September 1971 and July 1973, 231 Jensen SPs were completed with one final example built in October, a special order from someone who really wanted one.   

1972 Jensen-Healey publicity shot.

It was the start of a run of bad luck that would doom also the Interceptor and the entire company: (1) Development issues would beset the F-Type which would never see the light of day, (2) the Jensen-Healey (1972-1976) sports car which had seemed so promising turned into an expensive flop and (3) the first oil shock in 1973 rendered the Interceptor and many of its ilk suddenly big, thirsty dinosaurs and not even the release in 1974 of a much-admired convertible version could rescue things.  Bankruptcy loomed and by 1976 the end came.  However, flawed but charismatic English cars, decades on, sometimes enjoy second acts and SPs are now much prized with a small industry devoted to restoring them to their six-barreled glory, modern materials and techniques of insulation & cooling now able to transform them into something as well-behaved as any Interceptor.

Tranche

Tranche (pronounced trahnch, trahnsh, or trahnsh (French))

(1) One part or division of a larger unit; a slice, section or portion.

(2) A group of securities that share a certain characteristic and form part of a larger offering.

(3) Any part, division, or instalment.

(4) In finance, to divide into parts, applied especially to loans and share issues.

(5) In insurance, a distinct subdivision of a single policyholder's benefits, typically relating to separate premium increments.

(6) In pensions, a scheme's or scheme member's benefits relating to distinct accrual periods with different rules.

1400s: From the French tranche, (a cutting (literally, “a slice”)), a form of trancher (to cut, to slice), from Old French trenchier, trancher & trancher (cut, make a cut), possibly from the Vulgar Latin trinicāre (cut in three parts). It was cognate with the English trench.  The specific uses in economics and finance didn’t emerge until 1930.  The form in Modern French is tranché (feminine tranchée, masculine plural tranchés, feminine plural tranchées), the past participle of trancher (clear-cut, marked, bold, distinct (and in heraldry: per bend)).  Tranche is a noun & verb and tranched & tranching are verbs; the noun plural is tranches.

Tranches in a collateralised debt structure.

Tranche has become so associated with matters financial that the word is now seldom used in other contexts, probably a good thing given it’s likely only to confuse.  In finance, a tranche is a portion of a security (loans, mortgages, stocks, bonds etc) that can be packaged for sale to investors; Securities are broken to be reassembled in different forms for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is to make them easier to sell.  Because investors base their decision to purchase on factors such as risk, time and the quality of asset backing, tranches prepared for sale vary in the emphasis placed on these factors to attract buyers with different priorities.

Slicing the cake.

Since the global financial crisis (GFC) began in 2008, the perception probably is that packaging is most associated with residential mortgages, the money banks and others loan to people to buy houses as homes or investments.  That’s not entirely true but it has been a big part of the market.  Typically, mortgages are repaid over fifteen to thirty years but the lenders prefer to churn, banks, rather than waiting decades to get the money, on-sell mortgages to investors, thereby gaining the funds to lend for more mortgages.  Because of the limited number of number of investors, individuals and institutional, willing to buy thirty year mortgages, banks create tranches, some including the first three years of each mortgage, some the five years while a few will run for the whole term.

This spread of products appeals to a spread-out market.  Some investors will prefer the low-risk tranche of three-year mortgages and accept the lower interest rate while others will opt for the riskier long-term tranche, attracted by the higher rate.  Tranching is thus a device which maintains the liquidity of the loan pool and provides a differentiated securities market in which investors can adjust their exposure according to their own risk versus reward calculation.

Pick your tranche; you pay your money, you take your choice.

The particular, celebrated case of the sub-prime mortgage crisis which began to manifest in 2008-2009 involved mostly tranches of CMOs (collateralized mortgage obligations) and the problems then were not a product of the structural design of tranching but the quality of what was being tranched.  Essentially, like many of the periodic crises in capitalism, the GFC was triggered by over-production.  The traditional mortgage market consisted of borrowers judged to be capable of repaying the loan but, various things having combined to mean the lenders had run out of them, they resorted to lending to people who would never be able to repay.  That required some clever contractual engineering to ensure (1) the credit-rating agencies would grant investment-grade ratings to what were junk securities so (2) the risk would be quickly on-sold.  The rationale for all of this was that the tranching was done in such a way that the spread of the risk was so diversified that whatever defaults occurred would present no systemic threat.  There are interesting stories about (1) & (2).

Lots lost lots in the GFC but there were also quite a number who made much and very quickly.  So profitable for those few in the right place at the right time was the loaning of money to those with no capacity to repay that it’s hard to believe it won’t, at scale, happen again and there are suggestions it may be happening now.  The unusual combination of borrowing at historically high multiples against static or falling incomes for assets at historically high valuations has happened in an era of historically low interest rates.  Movements downwards in asset values or upwards in interest rates will have a multiplier effect on each-other and those movements, if sufficient, will essentially render much mortgage debt functionally sub-prime and there were those who predicted the extraordinary increase in the global money-supply playing out this way.

The headline in the French language which in 2016 announced: Lindsay Lohan s'est tranché le doigt en deux (Lindsay Lohan sliced her finger in half).

Actually "sliced her finger in half" was a bit sensationalist (one might even say Anglo-Saxon style click-bait).  In October 2016, during an Aegean cruise, there was a nautical incident, the tip of one of her fingers severed by the boat's anchor chain but details of the circumstances are sketchy.  It may be that upon hearing the captain give the command “weigh anchor”, she decided to help but, lacking any background in admiralty terms and phrases, misunderstood the instruction.  The detached piece of digit was salvaged from the deck and ashore, soon re-attached by micro-surgery.  Digit and the rest of the patient are said to have made full recoveries, something especially significant because it was the ring finger which was “tranched” but, thanks to the surgeon’s skill in fixing the gruesome injury, she managed later to find husband and the finger now displays engagement and wedding rings.  All’s well that ends well.

Carburetor

Carburetor (pronounced kahr-buh-rey-ter or kahr-byuh-yey-tor)

(1) A device for mixing vaporized fuel with air to produce a combustible or explosive mixture for use in the cylinder(s) or chambers of an internal-combustion engine.

(2) In the slang of drug users, a water pipe or bong; a device for mixing air with burning cannabis, cocaine or other narcotics (rare since the 1970s and then usually in the form “carb” or “carby”).

1866: From the verb carburate, from the Italian carburate (to mix (air) with hydrocarbons”), an inflection of carburare & the feminine plural of carburato.  As a transitive verb carburet was used mean “to react with carbon”.  Strangely, the exact origin of the word is uncertain but it was likely a portmanteau of carbon (in the sensor of a clipping of hydrocarbon) + burette (a device for dispensing accurately measured quantities of liquid).  The construct was carb (a combined form of carbon) + -uret (an archaic suffix from Modern Latin) (uretum to parallel French words using ure).  The earlier compound carburet (compound of carbon and another substance; now displaced by carbide) was from 1795 and it was used as a verb (to combine with carbon) after 1802.  The use with reference to the fuel systems used in the internal combustion engines of vehicles dates from 1896.  Carburator, carbureter and carburetter were the now obsolete earlier forms and the standard spelling in the UK, Australia & New Zealand is carburettor.  Carb & carby (carbs & carbies the plural) are the the universally used informal terms (gasifer was rare) and although most sources note the shortened forms weren’t recorded until 1942 it’s assumed by most they’d long been in oral use.  Outside of a few (declining) circles, “carb” is probably now more generally recognized as the clipping of carbohydrate.  Carburetor & carburetion are nouns; the noun plural is carburetors.

Some carburetor porn

One carburetor: 1931 Supercharged Duesenberg SJ with 1 x updraft Stromberg (left; the exhaust manifold the rare 8-into-1 monel "sewer-pipe") (left), 1966 Ford GT40 (Mark II, 427) with 1 x downdraft Holly (centre; the exhaust headers were referred to as the "bundle of snakes") and 1960 Austin Seven (later re-named Austin Mini 850) with 1 x sidedraft SU.

Except for some niches in aviation, small engines (lawnmowers, garden equipment etc) and for machines where originality is required (historic competition and restorations), carburetors are now obsolete and have been replaced by fuel-injection.  There is the odd soul who misses the challenge of tinkering with a carburetor, especially those with the rare skill to hand-tune multiple systems like the six downdraft Webers found on some pre-modern Ferraris, but modern fuel injection systems are more precise, more reliable and unaffected by the G-forces which could lead to fuel starvation.  Fuel injection also made possible the tuning of induction systems to produce lower emissions and reduced fuel consumption, the latter something which also extended engine life because all the excess petrol which used to end up contaminating the lubrication system stayed instead in the fuel tank.

Two carburetors: 1970 Triumph Stag with 2 x sidedraft Strombergs (left), 1960 Chrysler 300F with 2 x Carter four-barrel downdrafts on Sonoramic cross-ram (long) manifold (centre) and 1969 Ford Boss 429 with 2 x Holly four-barrel downdrafts on hi-riser manifold.

Until the 1920s, all but a handful of specialized devices were simple, gravity-fed units and that was because the engines they supplied were a far cry from the high-speed, high compression things which would follow.  In the 1920s, influenced by improvements in military aviation pioneered during World War I (1914-1918), the first recognizably “modern” carburetors began to appear, the conjunction of adjustable jet metering and vacuum controls replacing the primitive air valves and pressurized fuel supply mechanisms allowed engineers to use a more efficient “downdraft” design, replacing the “updraft” principle necessitated by the use of the gravity-feed.  Between them, the “downdraft” and “sidedraft” (a favorite of European manufacturers) would constitute the bulk of carburetor production.  The next major advance was the “duplexing” of the carburetor’s internals, doubling the number of barrels (known now variously as chokes, throats or venturi).  Although such designs could (and sometimes were) implemented to double the capacity (analogous with the dual-core CPUs (central processing units) introduced in 2005), the greatest benefit was that they worked in conjunction with what was known as the “180^o intake manifold”, essentially a bifurcation of the internals which allowed each barrel to operate independently through the segregated passages, making the delivery more efficient to the most distant cylinders, something of real significance with straight-eight engines.  Few relatively simple advances have delivered such immediate and dramatic increases in performance: When the system was in 1934 applied to the them relatively new Ford V8 (the “Flathead”), power increased by over 25%.

Three carburetors: 1967 Jaguar E-Type (XKE) 4.2 with 3 x sidedraft SUs (left), 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/C with 3 x downdraft Webers (centre) and 1965 Pontiac GTO with 3 x downdraft Rochesters.

Advances however meant the demand for more fuel continued and the first solution was the most obvious: new manifolds which could accommodate two or even three carburetors depending on the configuration of the engine.  Sometimes, the multiple devices would function always in unison and sometimes a secondary unit would cut-in only on demand as engine speed rose and more fuel was needed, an idea manufacturers would perfect during the 1960s.  World War II (1939-1945) of course saw enormous advances in just about every aspect of the design of internal combustion engines (ICE) and carburetors too were improved but in a sense, the concept had plateaued and it was fuel-injection to which most attention was directed, that being something which offered real advantages in flight given it was unaffected by G-forces, atmospheric pressure or acrobatics, working as well in inverted as level flight, something no carburetor could match.

There is a quirk in the history of the triple carburetor Jaguars, a configuration first offered on the 1957 XKSS after have been used on various versions of the factory's C-Type (XK120-C) & D-Type race cars.  The first general-production Jaguar XK-Six to use the configuration was the XK150S in 1958 but when the last of the six-cylinder E-Types left the line 1971, that was the end of the line for the triple carburettor Jaguar.  It is however misleading to suggest the XK150S, E-Type and Mark X/420G were the only series-production Jaguars with triple carburetors because on some cars during the 1950s & 1960s, the factory fitted a smaller electromagnetically controlled “auxiliary carburetor” which augmented the main pair, making starting easier.  The unusual arrangement acted as a choke but it was a complicated solution to a simple problem and, while performing faultlessly in testing, in the real world with gas (petrol) of varying quality and in different climatic conditions, it sometimes proved troublesome and there were owners who gave up and installed a conventional choke.

Four carburetors: 1973 Jaguar E-Type (S3) with 4 x sidedraft Zenith-Strombergs (the Jaguar V12 was unusual in that the carburetors sat outside the Vee, left), Ford Cross Boss intake manifold (developed for the Boss 302 used in the Trans-Am Mustangs in 1970, technically the Autolite carburetor is a single “in-line downdraft four barrel” but the engine interacted with it as if it was being fed by four individual units, centre) and 1965 Ford GT40 (X1 Roadster 1, 289) with 4 x downdraft Webers (right, again with the "bundle of snakes" exhaust headers).

After the war, like the chip manufacturers with their multi-core CPUs in the early 2000s, the carburetor makers developed four-barrel devices.  In Europe, the preference for multiple single or two barrel (though they tended to call them “chokes”) induction but in the US, by the early-1950s just beginning the power race which would rage for almost two decades, for the Americans the four-barrel was ideal for their increasingly large V8s although sometimes even the largest available wasn’t enough and the most powerful engines demanded with two four-barrels and three two-barrels.  It was in the 1950s too that fuel-injection reached road cars, appearing first in a marvelously intricate mechanical guise on the 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W198) Gullwing.  Others understood the advantages and developed their own fuel-injection systems, both mechanical and electronic but while both worked well, the early electronics were too fragile to be used in such a harsh environment and these attempts were quickly abandoned and not revisited until the revolution in integrated circuits (IC) later in the century.  Mechanical fuel-injection, while it worked well, was expensive and never suitable for the mass-market and even Mercedes-Benz reserved it for their more expensive models, most of the range relying on one or two carburetors.  In the US, Chevrolet persisted with mechanical fuel injection but availability dwindled until only the Corvette offered the option and in 1965 when it was made available with big-block engines which offered more power at half the cost, demand collapsed and the system was discontinued, the big engines fed either by three two barrels or one very large four barrel.

Other four barrel devices

Reggie (Reggie Bannister (b 1945) with Regman Quad-Barrel Dwarfcutter in Phantasm (1979).

Four (and more) barrel weapons have long been common in fixed or mobile structures (warships, gun batteries etc) but are rare in anything hand-held because of the increases imposed in size & weight as well as the heat generated.  In fiction (notably video games and horror films) they’re a popular prop and the four barrel shotgun in Don Coscarelli’s cult classic Phantasm (1979) was among the more memorable.  An ad-hoc creation born of the need for more firepower (very much in the vein of the “…going to need a bigger boat” philosophy in the Film Jaws (1975), a line apparently improvised during filming because it appears neither in Peter Benchley’s (1940-2006) 1974 novel nor the original screenplay), it was made by welding together two double barrel shotguns and named the “Regman Quad-Barrel Dwarfcutter”.  It was that sort of film and freaks attracted to the design (which does seem hard to resist) have created Nerf-guns in the style.  Although rare, hand-carried, multi-barrel firearms have a history dating back centuries and provided the intended application is appropriate, they can be both effective and convenient, a number of manufacturers offering three and four barrel shotguns, all of which presumably include a section in the owner’s manual covering “recoil management”.  Very much in the spirit of those who took advantage of the modular construct of the early (and anyway already sometimes lethal) two-stroke Kawasaki triples (H1, H2, S1, S2 & S3; 1969-1975) to build a 48-cylinder version, nine-barrel(!) shotguns have been made... just in case.

Custom four barrel Vierling longarm by Johann Fanzoj (1790) of Ferlach, Austria.

The four-barrelled longarm was configured with a side-by-side double rifle (calibre: 9,3/9,3x74R), paired with an over-and-under shotgun (gauge 12/12/76).  Built to a customer specification to shoot four (plus two) times in sequence with “hot” barrels, the Vierling used H&H-type sidelocks with automatic ejectors.  An impressive example of the gunsmith's art, this was not a Phantasmesque welding job but an intricate design which had to regulate the rifle barrels two-times-two so they would shoot together to the same point of impact, in sequence.  First, the 9,3 barrels discharge, then by pushing the barrel selector forward, the shooter continues with the 12-gauge barrels with automatic ejection of the shotgun cartridges facilitating quick reloading… just in case.

Bodis Quattro titanium exhaust system MV Agusta F4.

Even before we had Greta Thunberg (b 2003) to show us the errors of our ways, exhaust pipes were rarely admired and associated mostly with noise, smell and filth but for some small sub-sets of humanity (such as owners of C2 (1963-1967) & early (1968-1972) C3 (1968-1982) Chevrolet Corvettes and Shelby American AC Cobras (1962-1967 and the many replicas since), they're a fetish but it's on motorcyclists the pipes and their sometimes convoluted paths exert a particular fascination; for them exhaust pipe porn is a real thing.  The manufacturers and after-market suppliers came to understand the attraction and over the years concocted some memorable and occasionally bizarre systems but the Italians in particular have managed sometimes to arrange things in a way which reflects the nation's artistic sensibilities, studious critics acknowledging the contribution.  When the Guggenheim Museum in New York staged The Art of the Motorcycle exhibition (October 2001-January 2003), one featured machine was the MV Agusta F4, and there was a focus on the way its four pipes exited rakishly from the tail section.    

English “Duck’s foot” four-barrelled pistol with walnut slab-sided butt and silver-wire scroll inlay, said to date from the early nineteenth century.  Note the angle of the barrels and thus the wide field of fire.

Collectors also prize bizarre and ambitious designs such as the four-barreled “duck’s foot” pistol.  Historians have questioned whether these weapons really were manufactured in the Georgian or Regency eras and some suggest they were a product of entrepreneurial Victorians creating “relics” which played into prejudices about just how bad were what were then the “olden days”.  The legend is these were early crowd-control devices with which some worthy (squire, mill or mine owner etc) could deter the mob (revolting peasants, disgruntled factory workers, whatever) which would have been inclined to take a chance against someone armed only with a single-shot pistol.  There’s nothing in the historic record to suggest riots and strikes were ever “controlled” with such things but the Victorians of the late nineteenth century were well aware they were the first generations to benefit from a standing, regulated constabulary so the need for such things would have seemed at least plausible.  The legend is they were also carried by naval captains in case of mutiny and while the Admiralty apparently never issued them, it’s not impossible some officers bought their own… just in case.

Five carburetors:  Le Monstre's 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) Cadillac V8 (left) with its unusual (though not unique) five-carburetor induction system; the layout (one in each corner, one in the centre) is a "quincunx", from the Latin quīncunx.  Le Monstre ahead of Petit Pataud, Le Mans, 1950 (right).  At the fall of the checkered flag, the positions were reversed.  

Le Monstre was a much-modified 1950 Cadillac which ran at that year's Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic. one half of a two car team the other being a close to stock 1950 Cadillac coupe.  The idea behind the five carburettors was that by the use of progressive throttle-linkages, when ultimate performance wasn’t required the car would run on a single (central) carburettor, the other four summoned on demand and in endurance racing, improved fuel economy can be more valuable than additional power.  That’s essentially how most four-barrel carburettors worked, two venturi usually providing the feed with all four opened only at full throttle and Detroit would later refine the model by applying “méthode Le Monstre” to the triple carburettor systems many used between 1957-1971.  As far as is known, the only time a manufacturer flirted with the idea of a five carburetor engine was Rover which in the early 1960s was experimenting with a 2.5 (153 cubic inch) litre in-line five cylinder which was an enlargement of their 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) four.  Fuel-injection was the obvious solution but the systems then were prohibitively expensive (for the market segment Rover was targeting) so the prototypes ended up with two carburettors feeding three cylinders and one the other two, an arrangement as difficult to keep in tune as it sounds.  Rover’s purchase of the aluminium 3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V8 abandoned by General Motors (GM) meant the project was terminated and whatever the cylinder count, mass-produced fuel injection later made any configuration possible.  Motor racing is an unpredictable business and, despite all the effort lavished on Le Monstre, in the 1950 Le Mans 24 hour, it was the less ambitious Petit Pataud which did better, finishing a creditable tenth, the much modified roadster coming eleventh having lost many laps while being dug from the sand after an unfortunate excursion from the track.  Still, the results proved the power and reliability of Cadillac’s V8 and Europe took note: Over the next quarter century a whole ecosystem would emerge, crafting high-priced trans-Atlantic hybrids which combined elegant European coachwork with cheap, powerful, reliable US V8s, the lucrative fun lasting until the first oil crisis began in 1973.

Intake manifold (5 x 2 barrel) for the first generation (1969-1964) Oldsmobile V8 with Rochester-style carburetor mounting flanges.

A tiny lunatic fringe of the hot rod community did in the 1950s make use of Le Monstre's five-carburetor quincunx atop V8 engines and they were more ambitious still, using two barrel carburettors so that means ten throats for eight cylinders which sounds excessive but, as configured, the arrangement did make sense.  They generally used standard intake manifolds, modified to the extent of retaining the central unit in its stock positing while installing the other four in an extended X, all five often the familiar Rochester 2GC two-barrel.  What all this plumbing and hardware provided was an early form of the variable fuel metering now effortlessly delivered by modern electronic fuel injection in that the centre unit meant relatively economical operation and civilized characteristics for urban use while the four outboard took over under heavy throttle application, each located directly over an intake port for optimal distribution of the fuel air mix.  Synchronising multiple carburetors can of course be challenging when there’s two or three so five sounds worse but the configuration did simplify things because only the central one had to be adjusted for idle and part-throttle use while the outer four were tuned only for high throughput.  There was however the need to engineer a mechanical throttle linkage operating in two planes and while this became for years a common fitting on systems with three two barrels or two four barrels, with five in a quincunx the machinery was bulky and intricate and given the advantages of five turned out to be marginal at best, the idea never caught one and the systems are now just curiosities to be admired by those who adore intricacy for its own sake.

1953 Ford X-100: With roof panel retracted (it was “targa” before told us there were Targas (left), the five carburetor apparatus atop the 317 cubic inch (5.2 litre) Lincoln Y-Block V8 (centre) and the built-in hydraulic jacking system in use (right).

It wasn’t only the one-off Le Mans Cadillac or crazy hot-rodders who took the quincunx path, the apparatus appearing also on the 1953 Ford X-100.  In the years to come, such a thing would be called a “concept car” but that term didn’t then exist so Ford used the more familiar “dream car” and that does seem a more romantic way of putting it.  Reflecting the optimistic spirit of the early post-war years, the X-100 included a number of innovations including the use of radial-ply tyres, a built-in hydraulic jacking system, a rain-sensor which automatically would trigger an electric motor to close the sliding plexiglass roof panel, a built-in dictaphone, a telephone in the centre console and the convenience of heated seats and an electric shaver mounted in the glove compartment.  Some of the features became mainstream products, some not and while the “variable volume horn” wasn’t picked up by the industry, one did appear on the Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100; 1963-1981) although that was a rare supportive gesture.  It was also an age of imaginative labels and Ford called their quincunx induction system the “Multi-Plex”; while the engineering proved a cul-de-sac, the name did later get picked up by multi-screen suburban cinema complexes.  For the X-100, Ford used a central Holly two-barrel while the outer four were Ford model 94 two-barrels.  X-100 still exists and is displayed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

1969 Mercury Marauder X-100.  In 1969, the blacked-out trunk (boot) lid and surrounds was standard on X-100 and optional on other models.  In 1970 it became a “delete option” (an option which seems often to have been exercised).

In a number of quirky coincidences, the name X-100 seems to once have been an industry favourite because as well as the 1953 Ford “dream car”, it was the US Secret Service’s designation for the 1961 Lincoln Continental parade convertible in which John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  One might have thought that macabre association might have been enough for the “X-100” tag to not again be used but, presumably because the Secret Service’s internal codes weren’t then general public knowledge, in 1969 Ford’s Mercury division released an X-100 as an up-market version of its second generation (1969-1970) Marauder.  Notionally, the X-100 was a “high performance” version but its 365 (gross) horsepower 429 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 was an option in lesser priced Marauders which meant the X-100, weighed down by the additional luxury fittings, was just a little slower than the cheaper models with the 429.  The market for “full-sized” high performance cars was anyway by 1969 in the final stages of terminal decline and although an encouraging 5635 were sold in 1969, sales the next year fell to 2646 and the X-100 was retired at the end of the 1970 and not replaced.  Most bizarre though was project X-100, a US$75 million (then a lot of what was at the time borrowed money) contract in 1943 awarded to Chrysler to design, machine and nickel-plate the inner surfaces of the cylindrical diffusers required to separate uranium isotopes.  Part of the Manhattan Project which built the world’s first atomic bombs, Chrysler built over 3,500 diffusers used at the plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and many were still in service as late as the 1980s.  Not until after the first A-bomb was used against Hiroshima in August 1945 did most of the X-100 project’s workers become aware of the use being made of the precision equipment they were producing.

A “slingshot dragster” with a GMC 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) straight-six and five Stromberg 97 carburetors.  The machine is typical of the “garage-built” cars used in drag racing in the 1950s & 1960s and this one reputedly won its class at the Daytona Beach Winter Nationals in Florida one year in the early 1960s.

Although on a six cylinder engine the use of five carburetors may sound as counter-intuitive as five on a V8, as anyone from the long unfashionable school of structural-functionalism will explain, if something exists in its niche, that's because it fulfils some need.  Five carburettors did, for use in certain forms of motorsport, appear on some six cylinder engines and although the Mcgurk Company made many, the best known manifolds were those produced Howard Johansen’s (1910-1988) Howard Automotive for the 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) GMC in-line six (1952-1960).  Built originally for heavy-duty military operations, the GMC 302 was famously robust and, especially when equipped with the Wayne or Howard 12-port heads, was capable of reliably producing impressive power and prodigious torque.  At the time, on the basis of cost-breakdown, it was an attractive option because it easily could be made to out-perform both Ford’s outdated Flathead V8 and most of their (frankly disappointing) Y-Blocks while more modern designs like Chrysler's Hemi and the Cadillac V8 were much more expensive to buy and develop.  The GMC 302’s inherent torque curve was, for drag-racing purposes, actually better than many V8s and they were for years a popular choice until in 1955 the appearance of Chevrolet’s epoch-making small-block V8 meant the universe shifted and there were by then anyway cheap, used Chrysler Hemis aplenty.  Despite that, they retained a following and remained class-competitive for almost another decade.

Howard five carburetor manifold.  Before there was the internet, there were magazines and mail-order catalogues, the latter using essentially the same principle as Amazon today.

The reason five carburettors on a six cylinder engine made sense was the math of the flow rate was ideal and it avoided the more complex construction a manifold’s runners would have required were three two barrels fitted.  What the builders used was a formula which calculated the optimal cfm (cubic feet per minute) flow for the fuel-air mix, the critical variables being engine displacement and rpm (crankshaft revolutions per minute).  It was a particular application of the math because while it was understood an increase in the cfm number beyond the optimal would increase power at high engine speeds, that was both wasted effort and counter-productive because the gain would come at the expense of low and mid-range torque which is what the dragsters needed to maximize their initial acceleration and thus attain the best ET (elapsed time) over the quarter-mile.  This was exactly the reason why Ford’s Boss 429 (1969-1970) with its huge intake ports was not a success on the drag strip: it was designed to run for hours at full throttle on the NASCAR Ovals something at which it excelled though those big ports meant it would later take to turbo-charging like few others.  Because the Stromberg 97’s flow-rate could be tweaked to about 162 cfm, five would deliver an aggregate 810 which was close to ideal and the significance of Howard Johansen’s manifold was the intake runners were precisely machined to ensure a constant flow of the fuel-air mix, cognizant of the firing order, the 90^o internal turns created to generate sufficient turbulence to attain a perfect fuel-air mix.  Because of the math, although a six-carb manifold could have been designed, adding a sixth Stromberg 97 would only have added weight and compromised the desired torque curve.

Six carburetors: 1979 Honda CBX with six sidedraft Keihins (left), 1965 Lamborghini P400 Miura (prototype chassis) with 6 x downdraft Webers (centre) and 1970 Ferrari 365GTB/4 (Daytona) with 6 x downdraft Webers (right).

It was the development of these big four barrels which in the US reduced the place of the multiple systems to a niche reserved for some specialist machines and even the engineers admitted that for what most people did, most of the time, the multiple setups offered no advantage.  The research did however indicate they were still a selling point and because people were still prepared to pay, they stayed on the option list.  There were a handful of engines which actually needed the additional equipment to deliver maximum power but they were rare, racing derived units and constituted not even 1% of Detroit’s annual production.  Paradoxically, the main advantage of the multiple setups was economy, a six-barrel (ie 3 x two-barrel) engine running only on its central carburetor unless the throttle was pushed open.  As it was, the last of Detroit’s three-carb setups (a reputed seven 1972 Plymouth Road Runners with the 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8 so equipped produced in September 1971) left the line in 1971, the configuration unable easily to be engineered to meet the increasingly onerous exhaust emission rules.  In the UK, Jensen were advised a batch of the the now unlawful (in the US) 440s was available for sale and noting the things could still be sold in other places, purchased 232 as what was planned as the first tranche to be fitted to their Interceptor SP (Six-Pack), a new top-of-the-line model to replace the intriguing but troublesome FF.  For all sorts of reasons, the "SP venture" didn't end well and the company never took up the option to buy a second tranche.

Eight carburetors: 1955 Moto Guzzi 500cm³ Ottocilindri V8 Grand Prix motorcycle with eight Dell'Orto sidedrafts.  One carburetor per cylinder was long common practice in motorcycle design and the two 1959 Daimler V8s (2.5 & 4.6 litre, 1959-1969 and designed along the lines of a motorcycle power-plant) were intended originally to be air-cooled and run eight carburetors; the production versions were water-cooled and used two sidedraft SUs.  The very thought of keeping eight carburetors synchronized would alarm most but clearly such intricacy doesn't scare the Italians because, in 1967, the Cooper-Maserati Formula One (F1) team, seeking that elusive quality of increased power and sustained reliability did ponder bolting a dozen Webers to what was their by then antiquated (pre-historic in F1 terms) 3.0 litre V12.  To the eternal regret of those who value mechanical complication for its own sake, that idea, like the notion of using three spark plugs per cylinder, never left the engineers' sketch pads; rational thought prevailed and fuel injection was adopted.

Carb porn: 1930 Ford Model A “Wade Coupe” with Chrysler 392 Hemi Stroker V8, fitted with eight Stromberg 97 single barrel, downdraft carburettors.

In the age of over-the-counter fuel injection systems and a still lively supply of high-cfm two and four barrel carburetors, there is of course no need for even big-displacement V8s to be fitted with eight carburettors but it is occasionally done as a visual treat: it’s carb porn.  This hot rod was built in the last decade and features eight Stromberg 97 carburetors mounted on an Edelbrock intake manifold atop a stroked 392 cubic inch (6.5 litre) Chrysler Hemi V8 with four-bolt main bearings, attached to a Muncie M22 four-speed manual transmission.  All those components were staples of the hot rod community in the 1960s so it’s a delightfully nostalgic agglomeration which will be capable of impressive performance although it should be used as a show-piece rather than exploiting its capabilities because the adherence to the way things used to be done extended to the chassis, the suspension using transverse leaf springs with the front an implementation of the legendary “suicide” apparatus (where the front axle sits ahead of the spring mounts meaning in the unlikely event of catastrophic chassis failure, the frame can, at whatever speed the vehicle is travelling, “dig into” the road surface).  In that spirit, braking is drums on all four wheels although, unlike the original 1930 Model A, they are hydraulically activated.  It was a thoughtful and well-executed build and at auction in September, 2025, it sold for US$98,500.  

Lindsay Lohan admiring Herbie’s carburetor in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

Before fuel-injection was late in the century used for some, most Volkswagen Type 1s (Beetles) were fitted with a single Solex carburettor although there were exceptions, some more expensive and higher performance (such things are relative) variants in Europe, Mexico and Brazil using twin Solexes.  Additionally, because it wasn’t difficult to swap in the twin carburettor units used in the Karmann Ghia (Types 14 & 34) and Type 3 cars, many were upgraded and over the years there were literally dozens of kits to create multi-carburetor induction systems using equipment from a variety of manufacturers including Solex, Weber, Dell'Orto and Kadron (Solex-Brosol).